Tuesday June 22, 2004: Madras, India and Osaka, Japan: A lot of the mornings on the India trip included getting up at 4:30 a.m. or earlier, including the one at home when I was headed to the airport and had to leave our guests from Port Harcourt, Nigeria, at our guest house.
Tuesday was another one of those mornings. We had to be out of Miraj and all the way to Kolhapur in order to catch the return leg of the Deccan Airways flight back to Bombay. Dr. Bidari was up and saw me off before he trudged over to the hospital to start his long list of surgeries for Tuesday.
Once in Bombay I had a substantial layover before I proceeded on to Madras on Indian Airways. Likewise, I had another layover in Madras before catching the Thai Airlines flight #TG774 at 12:05 a.m. on Wednesday, June 23. That segment took me back to Osaka, Japan, and then another leg carried me into Los Angeles. Eventually I made it back to Denver International Airport and home.
We were now cutting a pretty wide swath through India. We were joining with some good global partners like the Nazarenes, Presbyterians, Baptists, Seventh Day Adventists, International Rotary, the state department and even Congress.
God was seeing to it that His plan for helping needy and sick people all over the world was taking form through a simple little organization called Project C.U.R.E. He had arranged for Project C.U.R.E. to become presently the largest supplier of donated medical goods around the world. That was pretty awesome and exciting.
I have to admit something here as I call a halt to the India journal entry. I really missed Mom Jackson and her prayers for Project C.U.R.E. and for my personal safety. She was such an enthusiastic fan of what was happening. Every morning of her life I knew that she was up early praying for me and for the work of Project C.U.R.E., and sometimes even in the middle of the night when I was off in some crazy unsafe place,
She had been gone now since October and several times on this trip I caught myself wanting to hurry home, sit down on the sofa with her while I sipped some tea, and tell her all about the exciting things we were getting to do now in over 100 countries around the world.
I knew the look she would have in her eyes and the rapid-fire questions she would have asked about the people and the places. Then she would share with me the answers to some of the prayers that had taken place since I had been gone.
I had mentioned recently to Anna Marie how much I was missing Mom lately and especially her prayers, and Anna Marie simply shot back, “Well, I wouldn’t worry a lot about that, she’s closer to the ear of God now than she ever was in her life here.” I liked that.
I’m a happy man, thankful that God entrusted to us these years with this funny organization called Project C.U.R.E.